James Watt

Glasgow University Library Special Collections

An engraved portrait of the engineer and instrument maker James Watt (1736-1819).

Greenock-born Watt came to Glasgow in 1757 to work as an instrument-maker. The University of Glasgow employed him and gave him lodgings and a workshop there, and in 1763 the Professor of Natural Philosophy John Anderson presented him with a Newcomen steam engine in need of repair. Watt's mind turned to ways of improving the engine and in 1765, famously while strolling on Glasgow Green, he devised a separate condenser which would improve efficiency and permit enormous savings in fuel.

Watt spent the following years developing his invention and working as a consultant civil engineer in Scotland , before moving to Birmingham in 1774 to form a partnership with the industrialist Matthew Boulton (1728-1809) at his Soho Foundry. Their improved steam engines revolutionised the mining, iron, transport and manufacturing industries and Watt is considered to be one of the key figures of the Industrial Revolution.